Maxwell - Leadership gold: Lessons Ive Learned from a Lifetime of Leading

2008 by John C. Maxwell

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maxwell, John C., 1947
Leadership gold : lessons learned from a lifetime of leading / John C.
Maxwell.
p. cm.
Summary: Learning to lead effectivelyProvided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN-13: 978-0-7852-1411-3 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-7852-1411-9 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-4002-8007-9 (IE)
1. Leadership. 2. Industrial management. I. Title.
HD57.7.M39426 2007
658.4'092dc22

2007036802

Printed in the United States of America
08 09 10 11 QW 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

Leadership Gold is dedicated to Ella Ashley Miller, our fourth
grandchild. Her gentle nature continually draws us to her. We pray that
as she grows older she will mine the gold out of the lessons of life.

Thank you to
Charlie Wetzel, my writer
Stephanie Wetzel, who proofs and edits the manuscript
Linda Eggers, my assistant

I confess Ive wanted to write this book for almost a decade. In a way, Ive been working on it for most of my life. But I promised myself that I would not sit down and write it until I turned sixty. In February of 2007, I reached that milestone and began writing.

Ive had a remarkable and rewarding journey as a leader. In 1964, at the age of seventeen, I started reading and filing thoughts on the subject of leadership, because I knew leading was going to be an important part of my career. At age twenty-two, I held my first leadership position. In 1976, I became convinced that everything rises and falls on leadership. That belief was accompanied by a passion to be a lifelong student and teacher of this vital subject.

Learning to lead effectively has been a real challenge. Teaching others to lead effectively has been an even greater one. During the late 1970s, I poured myself into training and raising up potential leaders. To my delight, I discovered that leaders could be developed. That eventually prompted me to write my first leadership book in 1992, entitled Developing the Leader Within You. Since then I have written many others. For more than thirty years, leading and teaching leadership have been my lifes work.

ADDING VALUE TO YOUR LEADERSHIP

This book is a result of years of living in a leadership environment and learning through trial and error what it means to be a leader. The lessons Ive learned are personal and often simple, yet they can have a profound impact. I have spent my entire life mining them. I think of each chapter as a gold nugget. In the hands of the right person, they can add tremendous value to their leadership.

As you read each chapter, please understand that...

1. Im still learning about leadership. I havent arrived, and this book is not my final answer on the subject of leadership. Within weeks of this books publication, there will be thoughts I wish I could add. Why? Because I continue to learn and grow. I hope to keep growing until the day I die. I expect to keep discovering nuggets that I want to share with others.

2. Many people have contributed to the leadership gold in this book. One of the chapters in this book is entitled Few Leaders Are Successful Unless a Lot of People Want Them to Be. That has certainly been true for me. Its said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others mistakes. But the wisest person of all learns from others successes. Today I stand on the shoulders of many leaders who have added great value to my life. Tomorrow I hope you will be able to stand on my shoulders.

3. What Im teaching can be learned by nearly anyone. Greek philosopher Plato said, The greater part of instruction is being reminded of things you already know. Thats what the best learning is. As an author and teacher, what I try to do is help people truly understand in a new and clear way something that they have long sensed intuitively. I try to create aha moments.

Though I have lived my life in leadership by moving forward, I have begun to better understand it by looking backward. Now at age sixty, I want to share with you the most important lessons Ive learned as a leader. This book is my attempt to take the leadership gold Ive mined through painful trial and error and put it on the lowest shelf so that inexperienced as well as experienced leaders can have access to it. You dont have to be an expert to understand what Im teaching, and you dont have to be a CEO to apply it. I never want anyone who reads my books to be like Peanuts Charlie Brown, who admired a sand castle he had created on the beach only to have it leveled by a huge downpour. As he looked at the smooth place where his artwork had once stood, he said, There must be a lesson here, but I dont know what it is.My goal isnt to impress you while knowledge and insight elude you. Its to be a friend who helps you.

4. Much of the leadership gold Im sharing is a result of leadership mistakes I made. Some of the things Ive learned were very painful to me at the time. I can still feel the sting as I pass them on to you. I am reminded of how often I have made mistakes. Yet I am also encouraged because Im glad to recognize that I am wiser today than I was in years past.

Poet Archibald MacLeish remarked, Theres only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience. Too often I see people make a mistake and stubbornly plow ahead only to end up repeating the same mistake. With great resolve they say to themselves, Try and try again!How much better it would be to say, Try, then stop, think, change, and then try again.

5. Your ability to become a better leader depends on how you respond. Reading a book is never enough to make a difference in your life. What has the potential to make you better is your response. Please dont take shortcuts with this book. Hammer every gold nugget into something useful that can help you become a better leader. Dont be like the boy playing chess with his grandfather, who cried, Oh no! Not again! Grandpa, you always win!

What do you want me to do, replied the old man, lose on purpose? You wont learn anything if I do that.

The boy responded, I dont want to learn anything. I just want to win!

Wanting to win isnt enough. You have to go through a process to improve. That takes patience, perseverance, and intentionality. William A. Ward said, Committing a great truth to memory is admirable; committing it to life is wisdom.

I suggest that you keep this book as your companion for a significant amount of time so that it becomes a part of your life. Author and professor Peter Senge defines learning as a process that occurs over time and always integrates thinking and doing. He goes on to say, Learning is highly contextual.... It happens in the context of something meaningful and when the learner is taking action.

If you are an emerging leader, I recommend that you spend twenty-six weeks working your way through the bookone week for every chapter. Read the chapter and then follow the instructions in that chapters application section. If you allow each lesson to sink in and then flesh it out by taking action before going on to the next one, I believe that in time you will be amazed by the positive changes that occur in your leadership. Ive also created